


From Now Until Forever

by Kittycrackers (Calacious)



Category: General Hospital
Genre: Angst, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 17:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Kittycrackers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Spinelli doesn't return home on time from a stakeout, Jason's worried about the younger man. Compounding that worry is his knowledge of a secret that he's been keeping from Spinelli. Will Jason have the courage to tell Spinelli the truth before it's too late?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Patience is a Virtue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suerum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suerum/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Suerum! (and now I am going to get some sleep)

  1. Patience is a Virtue – Wherein Waiting is not Jason’s Strong Suit



Jason paced in front of the sofa, cellphone pressed tightly to his ear as he listened to the ringback tone. It was some innocuous classical piece that he didn’t recognize. He pressed the ‘end call’ button, and immediately redialed, hoping that, this time, Spinelli would pick up. He growled in frustration when he heard Spinelli’s overly chipper voicemail after listening, once more, to the young man’s ringback tone.

 

“Damn it, Spinelli, pick up the phone!” Jason ran a hand through his hair and glowered at his phone, as though the phone itself was at fault for his son’s – and what a surprise that had been when he’d learned that Damian Millhouse Spinelli was his son – lack of response.

 

Not that Spinelli knew that Jason was his father. That was something which Jason was trying to ease into revealing to the younger man, and he had a million misgivings to counter before he even thought of broaching the subject with Spinelli, the first of which was actually getting ahold of him rather than his voicemail.

 

Jason shook his head, and resisted the urge to hurtle his cellphone against the far wall. He should never have let Spinelli do this on his own. He didn’t care if the younger man was a licensed Private Investigator or not. Spinelli might be licensed to keep tabs on people, and conduct police-like work, and carry a concealed weapon, but to Jason, the younger man would always be much too kind and innocent, and vulnerable, to go off and do the, often dirty, workings of a PI on his own.

 

Jason let out a breath of air, and flopped down on the couch. He slid his finger across the face of his phone, marveling at how all it took to use his phone nowadays was a simple touch of his finger. He wondered if they’d soon be reading his thoughts, and shivered at the very thought of it. That’s all that he needed was a phone that could read his mind. Though, maybe if his phone could read his mind, he could get it to tell him where the hell Spinelli was right now, and why he wasn’t answering his phone.

 

He’d asked Sam for help with changing the background picture on his phone. Now, instead of showing the background that had come with the phone, a picture of Spinelli smiled up at him. The boy’s smile was shy, and slightly crooked, and it did funny things to Jason’s heart and stomach whenever he looked at it.

 

Jason traced Spinelli’s smile with the tip of his finger, and frowned, because he wasn’t sure if Spinelli got his smile from him, or from his mother, Lacy Pendelton-Spinelli. She was some girl that Jason didn’t even remember dating during in his residency at General Hospital.

 

She had left town shortly after she’d found out that she was pregnant. Her family hadn’t taken kindly to her getting ‘knocked up,’ and she’d been forced to marry Kevin Spinelli, the young man (he’d just turned eighteen) they’d held responsible for landing her in her ‘precarious situation.’ She hadn’t confessed to the truth, and, if Jason believed her story – which he didn’t – she hadn’t known whether the child had been conceived by Kevin or Jason as she’d had unprotected sex with both of them.

 

Either way, it didn’t matter to Jason, because she’d come forward, after all of these years, and told him the truth. He’d been a different man then, and, apparently she’d been a different woman too. After Kevin had died, about two years after Damien had been born, she’d moved in with Kevin’s parents, and then, not even a year later, she’d abandoned little Damien Millhouse Spinelli, leaving him with his grandparents. She was only eighteen, and had never really been able to live her life the way that she’d wanted to. Taking care of a toddler hadn’t exactly been her idea of a good time.

 

Lacy had no interest in reconciling with her son now, and had only come forward with the truth to ease her conscience before her oldest daughter made the same mistake as she had. She’d brought the teenager with her, and pointedly told her that, if she followed through with her unplanned pregnancy, she’d end up with a child that she didn’t want, and then a guilt which would eat at her for the rest of her life when she thought about who she’d slept with and what she’d conceived and been left with as a result.

 

Jason could see that the teenager, though she was just shy of her seventeenth birthday, was much more mature than her mother had been at her age. Hell, she was more mature than Lacy was as an adult. Her thoughts had been solely on her baby, and providing a good home for him or her, even if that meant giving the child up for adoption, which her mother was wholeheartedly against. She wanted her daughter to have an abortion.

 

Mary’s devotion to her unborn child gave Jason hope that the teenager would not do as her mother had. That, she wouldn’t weave a web of lies or abandon her child, no matter how much pressure her mother put on her to do so. He also saw a little of Spinelli in Mary’s gentle, yet stubborn mien. Jason doubted that she’d gotten either of those traits from her mother. If anything, they’d been wrought from experience of dealing with the overly self-centered, self-serving, and self-promulgating woman her entire life. Jason supposed that it was a small favor that Lacy had abandoned Spinelli when he was too young to remember her.

 

After Lacy and Mary had left, Jason had asked his mother to run a paternity test, discreetly, and had learned that Spinelli was, indeed his son. That Lacy hadn’t lied to him had left his head spinning.

 

Jason had known that Spinelli was his son, for a week now, and he was still trying to wrap his head around it. Jason didn’t know how to tell Spinelli that he was his father. Should he approach it as Darth Vader had, and tell Spinelli that he was his father? _Spinelli, I **am** your father._ He’d practiced mouthing the words in front of his bathroom mirror every morning, just after he’d shaved, and had felt foolish. He’d envisioned Spinelli, blanching, and then running away from him in pain, and maybe even anger.

 

What had Spinelli wanted from him all of these years, but to be accepted by Jason as his protégé? His grasshopper? His … son.

 

Jason smiled, or tried to, and traced the curvature of his own lips with one finger while he followed the outline of Spinelli’s lips on the only picture he had of his son. He tried to picture Lacy smiling, but the woman hadn’t so much as cracked a smile during her brief visit to Port Charles. Mary, however, had, and Jason tried to envision Mary’s smile, tried to superimpose it over his cellphone’s image of his son. It didn’t fit, and Jason supposed that, maybe Spinelli’s smile was a combination of Pendelton and Quartermaine genes.

 

Spinelli’s eyes were likewise different than those possessed by either parent. Lacy’s eyes were a lackluster greyish blue, that had made Jason think of a dreary winter afternoon. The kind where cold winds whipped, and, no matter how tightly you were bundled up to keep the winter wind out, it snuck through and chilled you right down to the bones.

 

Jason knew that his own eyes were a striking blue, and that they were often deemed to be cold and calculating. The very opposite of Spinelli’s. His son had eyes the color of soft jade. Spinelli’s emotions could be easily read in them. When looking into Spinelli’s eyes, Jason had finally understood the saying that the eyes are the windows to one’s soul, and he worried about the state of his own soul if that was really the truth.

 

Tenderness, compassion and love reigned supreme in his son’s, Spinelli’s, eyes, and Jason wondered how someone like Spinelli could have come from two wholly selfish, and, at turns, cruel, people like himself and Lacy. He knew that, when he was younger, and striving hard to be a doctor, that he was vain, and self-centered, even if he had no memory of it.

 

There was a part of Jason that was grateful for the accident, caused by a drunken AJ, which had robbed him of the life he’d led. Since the accident, which had occurred when he was in his twenties, Jason had suffered from a kind of dissociative amnesia, having no memory of his life before the accident. He didn’t remember being a Quartermaine, let alone sleeping with Lacy Pendelton. Even Monica, his mother in every sense of the word, aside from biology, didn’t remember the woman when Jason had mentioned her name.

 

If he hadn’t recreated himself from Jason Quartermaine – on the fast track to becoming a brilliant surgeon – to Jason Morgan, Jason doubted that he’d have given Lacy the time of day, let alone accepted Spinelli as his illegitimate son. If he’d have led the life of a Quartermaine, he could very well have ended up in an early grave due to drinking and living life in the ‘fast lane.’

 

Not that life as a hit man for Sonny Corinthos was any safer, but, Jason understood who he was, and he didn’t put on airs to the contrary. He was honest and lived a drug-free life. If he’d have been Jason Quartermaine, he wouldn’t have given Lacy the time of day, and he most certainly would not have thought of accepting Spinelli as his son. He’d have taken that knowledge to the grave, if for no other reason than to not have another heir to claim the family fortune.

 

Monica had been thrilled when she’d found out that Spinelli was Jason’s son. She’d always liked the ‘quirky’ young man; even if she didn’t understand what he was saying half the time when he talked. She didn’t see it the way the vast majority of the Quartermaines would – as a threat to the family fortune.

 

Jason had washed his hands of the Quartermaines a long time ago, but, now that he had two sons that he could lay claim to, he wasn’t sure what to do with regard to the family heritage he’d left behind. Should he let Spinelli and Danny reap the ‘benefits’ of being Quartermaines, by blood? Is that a decision he could make for either young man?

 

Right now, though, one of his sons could be in trouble, and Jason couldn’t do a damn thing about it, because Spinelli had refused – flat-out – to tell him where he was meeting his shady client that evening. No matter how much Jason had wheedled and demanded that Spinelli tell him, the young man had refused to betray his client’s trust in him.

 

It was times like this – when Spinelli was late, refusing, or unable, to answer his cellphone – that Jason wished that Spinelli was more like him, that he’d mentored the younger man as Spinelli had begged him to. Instead, Spinelli had scruples and integrity.

 

The boy had a conscience that simply wouldn’t quit. Jason, while he admired that, wished to god that Spinelli would, at least every once in a while, ditch his overactive conscience and do something designed solely to keep himself safe.

 

Spinelli rarely, if ever, did something that could be classified as truly selfish. The younger man was always thinking about everyone else, but himself. That was something that Jason vowed to remedy, provided that Spinelli didn’t reject him when he revealed that he was Spinelli’s father.

 

Jason thumbed his phone back to life, and looked at the time, which overlaid Spinelli’s picture. It was almost midnight, and Spinelli should have been back, tucked safely into bed, hours ago. He stood from the couch, and fumbled with his phone, trying to touch the icons that would connect him to Spinelli, or to Spinelli’s voicemail. This time, if Spinelli didn’t answer, he’d leave a message.

 

“Fuck,” Jason cursed when he almost dropped the phone. When he was certain that he had a good enough grip on the phone, Jason stabbed his index finger on the ‘call’ icon, and then held his breath as he waited for Spinelli, or the voicemail, to pick up.

 

This time, Jason didn’t have to wait long as Spinelli’s phone was answered before the ringback tone had even played two notes. His words of chastisement died on his lips, and Jason was reaching for the locked box that held his gun, tugging on his jacket, as he swept out of the penthouse without a backward glance.

 

“If anything happens to him…” Jason let the implied threat remain unspoken. He didn’t care that the woman who’d called him sounded almost frenetic herself, or that she was apologizing profusely, explaining where Spinelli was – some derelict clinic on the outskirts of town.

 

Jason’s voice was hard, but his heart and mind were racing as he ran to his SUV and tore out of the parking garage, ear pressed to the cellphone, listening to the stranger’s directions. When the stranger hung up, saying that she had to go. Jason gunned the engine and took a turn on two wheels.

 

 “Hang in there, son,” he muttered, praying that he wouldn’t be too late.

 

 


	2. The Truth About Cliches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spinelli's on a stakeout, and bored out of his skull. He's certain that his client, Mr. Abernathy, is completely off the mark with regard to what he's asked Spinelli to find out about his soon to be daughter-in-law, but, the money is too good to pass up, and Spinelli has taken on worse cases as a PI.

2.The Truth about Clichés – Wherein the Jackal Should Learn to Carry His Weapon with Him

Spinelli covered his third yawn of the night with a fist. He looked at his watch and shook his head. It was almost eleven, and he had nothing. The meeting with his client had gone smoothly – well, as smoothly as meeting with the paranoid, wealthy parent of a spoiled socialite who was going to be married in a month’s time.

 

The father – a portly, bald man with dark eyes that were deep-set in a round, pink face – had hired Spinelli to follow his son’s fiancé and dig up dirt on her. He, and his wife, Gertrude, were certain that Margot Delavergne was not Abernathy material. The man had sweat profusely, mopping at his brow with a monographed handkerchief.

 

He was willing to pay Spinelli a handsome fee to take pictures of Margot in compromising situations. There was no doubt in Douglas Abernathy’s mind that Margot was a hussy, and that Spinelli would have ample opportunities to get pictures of her and her various lovers.

 

He’d even given Spinelli money upfront, telling him that, even if he didn’t get any photos – accompanied by a sickly laughter that sounded more like coughing than anything else – Spinelli would be able to keep the thousand dollar retainer. Once the whole, ‘sordid business’ was over, Spinelli would receive a thousand dollar bonus, in addition to his typical, daily fee.

 

It was almost too good to be true, and, though Spinelli had his misgivings about taking Mr. Abernathy’s case, such as it was, there was the rent for his PI office to consider, and other bills that needed paying. Since he’d made the decision to go legit, and sever ties with Sonny Corinthos, his pocketbook had been tight. Spinelli was not yet in a position where he could refuse potential clients, particularly not ones who had money and promised to pay well. 

 

Spinelli had left the clandestine – nine-thirty PM meeting at a hotel lobby outside of Port Charles – more than a little paranoid that he was being watched, even though he was supposed to be the one doing the watching.

 

Now, though, an hour into his surveillance of Margot Delavigne, Spinelli was no longer paranoid. He was, matter-of-fact, more than a little bored. Nothing had happened since Margot had entered the ramshackle building, which was presumably a medical clinic for the poor. Mr. Abernathy did not buy the story that Margot was a volunteer there.

 

Spinelli dutifully snapped photos of the doctors, nurses, and patients going in and out of the swinging doors. None of them appeared out of place, and Margot had not left the clinic, not even for a break – smoking, or fresh-air.

 

For all intents and purposes, the clinic, though the outside of the building left much to be desired, appeared to be simply that – a clinic. And, Margot appeared to be just what Mr. Abernathy was certain she wasn’t – a kindhearted volunteer, who spent late nights at the clinic, helping out the doctors and nurses in whatever capacity she could.

 

Though, he couldn’t exactly see her from his vantage point, as she was inside, and he was outside, in his car, Spinelli imagined the beautiful blonde woman carrying out her duties with aplomb. And, if he just so happened to imagine her with Maxie’s bouncing exuberance, and grinning with her trademark dimples, well, so what of it? He was bored. And, Mr. Abernathy was a cold-hearted, money-pinching, millionaire with way too much time on his hands.

 

Sighing, Spinelli scrubbed at his eyes, pressing the tips of his fingers into his eyelids. He was tired, and a quick look at his phone showed him that he’d missed, not just one, but three calls from Stone Cold. Shaking his head, Spinelli stretched his legs out in front of him, and wondered why on earth Stone Cold was calling him.

 

Stone Cold had been acting strange for the past week, giving Spinelli looks that made his insides grow cold. Spinelli was unnerved by his mentor’s scrutiny, and the covert looks that the man kept shooting in his direction whenever Stone Cold thought that Spinelli wasn’t looking.

 

It was downright creepy, and was beginning to make Spinelli feel uncomfortable. It was like Stone Cold knew something that he was afraid to tell Spinelli, like maybe he had cancer, or only had a month left to live. Something which would devastate Spinelli, and leave him without a single, true friend in the world. 

 

Whatever it was, Spinelli just wished that Stone Cold would come out and tell him, because he was starting to lose sleep wondering what Stone Cold was working up to telling him. And, if Stone Cold was going to tell him, Spinelli that he only had a short time left on this earth, well, he’d take it like a man, and make sure to spend every waking minute that he could with his mentor, while he still had him.

 

Stone Cold had also taken to asking Spinelli where he was going, how long he’d be gone, if he was going to get dinner out, and when he was expecting to be home. It was almost as though Jason Morgan had been replaced by some kind of pod person. Spinelli refused to think of the alternative – that his mentor had suffered some kind of mental breakdown, or, worse, that there was a brain tumor eating away at his mind.

 

Stifling another yawn, Spinelli decided that he wasn’t going to get anything more sitting in the car, because it was clear that Margot was not planning on coming out of the clinic anytime soon. If Mr. Abernathy’s information was accurate, Margot wasn’t due to end her shift until two in the morning.

 

Again, something which the wealthy man found astonishing, and believed to be untrue, a cover for something far more nefarious. Like a clandestine meeting with a secret lover, whom she would leave Jeremy for, after marrying him, and then gouging him for his money in a divorce, or murder scheme.

 

After all, who in their right mind would spend four hours, so late at night, doing volunteer work for the poor? No doubt the clinic was filled with all sorts of unsavory sorts – alcoholics, drug addicts, unwed mothers, thieves, gangsters, murderers, and the like. Mr. Abernathy could not fathom why anyone would choose to spend time with people like that, especially if they didn’t have to.

 

Spinelli shook himself from thoughts of Mr. Abernathy’s prejudices, and twisted his back until it popped. Stakeouts were definitely not at all what they looked like in the movies, or even in some of the books that Spinelli had read on the subject during his private investigation courses. Somehow the writers and the actors made it seem far sexier than it was.

 

Shifting in his seat, Spinelli made a decision. He was going to go into the clinic, and prove to Mr. Abernathy – through cold, hard photographic facts – that his soon to be daughter-in-law was not, in fact the two-timing floozy that he thought she was, but rather a lovely woman with a kind heart who liked to help those less fortunate than herself. Spinelli hoped that Mr. Abernathy’s son, Jeremy, had a better head on his shoulders than his father did, otherwise Margot would be better off marrying someone else.

 

Checking to see that his phone was still on vibrate, only to find that he’d missed three more calls from Stone Cold, Spinelli pocketed his phone, and his camera, and slid out from behind the wheel of his vehicle. It was a cool evening, and, though the street was sparsely lit by city lights, there was a full moon high in the dark sky that was providing ample light to see by, though it also left portions of the sidewalk lying in eerie shadows cast by the buildings. Spinelli knew that there were stars out, but, being in the city, he couldn’t see any of them.

 

An odd sense of foreboding stole over Spinelli as he started across the street, but he shook it off, reassuring himself that, in spite of its location in the seedier part of town, the clinic was a perfectly safe place for him to be. Still, he kept a careful eye out for anything, and anyone, out of place.

 

As he approached the clinic doors, Spinelli became aware of two figures, cloaked in darkness in a spot on the sidewalk where the moonlight refused to shine. They appeared to be arguing, but he couldn’t make out the words, because, while the argument appeared to be heated, they kept their voices low.

 

The two arguers were off to the side of the clinic doors, a step or two away from where Spinelli was walking. Out of the corner of his eye, Spinelli caught a flash of silver, and he turned. He had a license to carry a concealed weapon, but he’d left his revolver in the car, tucked away securely in his glove compartment, fulfilling at least one of the clichés of those who were in his line of work.

 

Spinelli opened his mouth to say – what? – he didn’t know. As it was, whatever it had been that he’d been about to say died on his lips as the two arguers turned in his direction, their faces a mask of anger and bitterness. The flashing silver that Spinelli had seen moments ago was glinting in a small, unfettered beam of moonlight, revealing that it was, in fact, a knife. It was nothing fancy, just an ordinary switchblade.

 

“Hey, asshole, mind your own fucking business, why don’t you?” one of the men said. His voice was raspy, and colder than the night air. Even though he wasn’t the one that was holding the switchblade, he was still able to invoke fear in Spinelli.

 

Maybe it was the way his eyes, wide and showing much more white than was normal, seemed to take in everything around him and nothing at all. They were unfocused and shone bright, like with fever, though Spinelli doubted that the man had a fever at all. The man was unkempt: stringy hair, cramped beneath a knit cap, was matted to his forehead; his skin was sallow and grimy with dirt; and he wore what appeared to Army fatigues, faded green and torn in places. There was a stench – alcohol and piss – that permeated the air, and caused Spinelli to breathe through his mouth so as to avoid gagging.

 

“Uh, I…” Spinelli was unable to finish the rest of his apology, as, at that moment, the door to the clinic opened with a loud, resounding bang, startling all three of them.

 

And then, it was like everything was happening all at once and yet in painstakingly slow motion – like one of those frame-by-frame scenes that movies sometimes employed. Spinelli half turned in the direction of the sound, and at that same moment, the arguing men, spooked by the sound, and the bright light which spilled out of the clinic doors, moved to defend themselves.

 

The man with the knife, turned and took a step forward, at the same exact moment that Spinelli had, and, though things happened so quickly, it was like the knife plunged into Spinelli’s side with an agonizing slowness. The tortoise outstripping the hare in the race that would soon become Spinelli’s struggle with life and death as the knife, almost as suddenly as it had stuck him, was torn free. The two men, who had moments ago been enemies, turned as one, and ran, together, down the darkened street.

 

At first, Spinelli didn’t feel anything. It was as if time and thought and the world had slowed down to the point where things could almost go backward if given a push at just the right time. He turned his attention, once more, toward the source of the disturbance which had disturbed him and the two arguers.

 

Stood in the doorway of the clinic, Margot, backlit by the yellow light of the clinic, looked like an angel, her curly, blonde hair cascading over her shoulders, like the rapids of a river. Her mouth – lips glossed in a subdued pinkish color – was open in a surprised, ‘O,’ which would have been comical in different circumstances.

 

Spinelli opened his mouth to ask Margot for help, but instead of words, a grotesque sort of moan tumbled out, and then he stumbled forward, knees meeting the pavement before he knew what was happening. His mind had a hard time understanding what was going on. Even though Spinelli knew that he’d been stabbed – he’d felt the knife bite into his side – he was still relatively pain free, and that just didn’t add up in his mind.

 

By all accounts, when one is stabbed, one should be in some kind of pain, not encompassed in total numbness that makes it feel as though one’s limbs are made of rubber rather than flesh and blood. Just as Spinelli was despairing, and thinking that he was some kind of anomaly – even more of a freak than Sonny, and others like him, had claimed that Spinelli was – he felt it, the pain.

 

The pain stole Spinelli’s breath away as it snaked its way from where it was concentrated at the site of the wound, toward other parts of his body where, by all rights, it shouldn’t hurt – like his right toe, which throbbed in time with the beating of his heart. He laughed at the absurdity of it, but it came out as a warped, garbled sound, not unlike that of the broken-off noises that accompanied weeping.

 

Spinelli’s pocket vibrated, and – not even certain of his movements, because, while he could see, clearly, that his fingers were attached to his hands, they didn’t quite feel as though they were a functioning part of his body –he reached for his cellphone, wondering, idly, if it was, yet again, Stone Cold. The man was acting like a mother hen of late. It was unnerving, Spinelli reminded himself, as he fumbled with the phone.

 

For some reason, Spinelli couldn’t remember how to operate the phone. It was vibrating in his hand; Stone Cold’s stern, unsmiling face, stared at him out of eyes the color of ice, before the screen went dark as the call was ended before Spinelli could answer it.

 

In the next instant, Spinelli’s hand was covered by warmth that stole away the cold which had started to creep along his spine. He stared up, dully, from his phone, into concerned eyes, the color of the sky on a warm summer day.

 

The angel from the clinic, Margot, was kneeling next to him. Her pink lips were moving, and Spinelli knew that she was saying something, but he couldn’t make out any of the words. The only thing he seemed to be able to hear was the pounding of his heart, and above that, the rush of wind.

 

Spinelli almost cried when Margot looked away from him, turning to look at something, or someone, over her shoulder. It was a loss of something tangible, and good, in a world which had suddenly turned into nothing but pain, and Spinelli felt the loss of it greatly, reaching out to Margot with a shaky, bloodied hand he hadn’t realized he’d been pressing to his wound.

 

“It’s okay, you’ll be alright.” Margot’s words suddenly penetrated the loud, ba bump, ba bump of Spinelli’s heartbeat, reassuring him, even though he was still in pain and the world around him was fuzzy at best.

 

“The doctors will take care of you,” Margot murmured into his ear. She had him pressed tightly to her bosom, one of her hands running through his hair in a comforting fashion, kind of like Spinelli imagined that a mother would do for her child.

 

When his cellphone started to vibrate, Spinelli looked at it in dumbfounded wonder, trying to make out whose face was on the screen. Margot plucked it out of his hand with deft fingers and answered his phone with far more grace than Spinelli could have managed at that moment, and, though he tried to follow the conversation, the sound of his heartbeat and the tilting of the world around him were far too much for him to contend with.

 

Spinelli’s world tilted and swayed precariously as he was pulled to his feet by hands which were large and calloused. Hands that were not Margot’s, which were warm and small and gentle – comforting. At first, Spinelli struggled to get away from the strange, rough hands, but then he realized, belatedly and with no small amount of embarrassment, that the hands belonged to a doctor who was trying to help him.

 

“Sorry…sorry,” Spinelli murmured through lips that weren’t working properly.

 

“A little help here, Ms. Delavigne,” the doctor said with a grunt as he propelled Spinelli forward on feet that didn’t want to cooperate. It was slow and painful going, and it felt like it was going to take forever, that they’d never make it through the clinic doors.

 

“Sir, your friend is coming,” Margot breathed the words into Spinelli’s ear as she carefully wrapped an arm around his waist, avoiding his injured side. “He sounds real worried.”

 

“Huh?” Spinelli turned toward the sound of Margot’s voice, accidentally hitting her cheek with his nose.

 

“Your friend,” Margot repeated, a little louder, as though Spinelli were deaf, and not in shock from a knifing wound. “The one who called…he’s coming.”

 

Spinelli blinked in confusion, and then, as he was led through the clinic doors, it clicked. “Stone Cold,” he blurted out, his lips grazing the side of Margot’s face.

 

She gave him a puzzled look, her lips pursed, but she said nothing, just pushed his head away from her face, and carted him along beside her. The interior of the clinic was vastly different than its exterior. It was bright and clean, and resembled the interior of any upscale clinic in the city. In spite of its location and designation as a clinic for the poor, there was nothing lacking in its design and staffing, from what Spinelli could see.

 

A wave of dizziness crashed over Spinelli and he almost fell to his knees once again, but the doctor and Margot were holding him, keeping him upright.

 

“Easy does it,” the doctor said, taking on more of Spinelli’s weight with another grunt. “We’ve got you. A little help, Dr. Morales,” the doctor called over his shoulder to someone that Spinelli could not see.

 

Spinelli was quickly, and efficiently, lifted onto a gurney, and was told to, “Lie back, son,” which he was more than happy to do. He was tired and aching and cold.

 

“Stone Cold?” Spinelli asked when he felt a hand grasp his, and squeeze it lightly.

 

“You’re cold?”

 

Spinelli turned toward the sound of the strange voice, only to be blinded by a light as it was shined into, first one, and then the other, eye. His hand flew up to his face to try and block out the brightness, but it was arrested by someone else, and wrested away from his face.

 

“Where’s Stone Cold?” Spinelli asked, trying to turn away from the light.

 

“His pupils are equal and responsive, but he’s combative and appears to be confused,” Dr. Morales, at least that’s who Spinelli assumed it was, said. “We need to sedate him, and see what kind of damage was done – if he needs surgery, or not. Ms. Delavigne, did he hit his head, or lose consciousness?”

 

“No, at least I don’t think he did,” Margot said. “I…he was stabbed, by…I think it was Bob, or maybe Billy. They were arguing, and I think I spooked them when I stepped out of the clinic.”

 

Spinelli felt a prick in his arm, and the bright lights started to swirl like the whirly twirly colors of the kaleidoscope that he’d gotten from the fair when he was six. The pain in his side began to subside, and he realized that he’d been given something for the pain.

 

He smiled, or at least he tried to smile. “Thanks, Margot,” Spinelli said, hoping that the words had come out right, because the doctors and Margot were looking at him as though he’d spoken in a different language, or grown two heads.

 

“Do you know this young man, Ms. Delavigne?” the doctor who wasn’t Morales, asked.

 

Almost immediately, Spinelli realized that he’d slipped up and blown his cover, in a manner of speaking. But, he found it difficult to care now that the pain in his side was down to a dull, almost not there, throb instead of the spiking, excruciating, pulsing pain it had been mere moments ago.

 

“No, I don’t. I don’t know how he knows my name,” Margot said. She sounded alarmed, and looked from one doctor to the other, shaking her head.

 

Spinelli almost laughed aloud at how absurd everything about this night had been thus far. From being hired by the obtuse, bigoted Mr. Abernathy to find dirt on a woman whose life very nearly mirrored that of Mother Teresa, save for her lack of self-sacrificial piety – to being stabbed by someone named Billy or Bob – to blowing his own cover while under the influence of drugs that made him feel like he could possibly fly if he had half a mind to.

 

It was all terribly funny to Spinelli, and he found that he couldn’t contain the laughter any longer, even if it made him look like he was losing his mind. The too many calls from Stone Cold, who was acting like some kind of overbearing parental figure, were the proverbial icing on the proverbial cake, and Spinelli gave way to laughter, ignoring the concerned looks from the doctors and Margot.

 


	3. Quick on the Draw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is Jason too late once again?

3\. Quick on the Draw – Wherein Jason Should Listen Before Jumping to Conclusions

Jason didn’t know if he believed the woman he’d spoken with on the phone. Until he saw Spinelli with his own eyes, and confirmed that the younger man – his son – was alive, and would recover from being stabbed, he wouldn’t believe what some strange woman, answering Spinelli’s phone, said.

 

“You’ve got to be okay,” Jason spoke the words with conviction as he sped through the streets, toward where the woman had claimed that Spinelli was being tended to.

 

Why the younger man was in a place reputed for danger, Jason didn’t know, but, once he got Spinelli back, where he belonged, Jason wasn’t going to let him out of his sight, even if he had to accompany him on stakeouts for the rest of his natural life. Jason was going to stick to Spinelli like glue, whether he liked it or not. He wasn’t going to go through this kind of heart-rending, not knowing, again.

 

He spotted Spinelli’s car before he recognized the street. Seeing Spinelli’s car, parked across from the clinic, did little to ease Jason’s fears. Instead, it was like a switch had been thrown and his worries were increased tenfold. Spinelli’s car, abandoned, was concrete proof that he really was here, and that, that woman, Margaret, or Marge, or whatever the hell her name had been, had been telling Jason the truth – that Spinelli had been stabbed, and was currently receiving medical attention at this clinic.

 

Jason parked his SUV behind Spinelli’s car, not caring whether his tires matched up with the curb or not. He was out of his vehicle almost before the engine had stopped running, nearly tearing the door off of its hinges in his haste to get out and get to Spinelli.

 

He stumbled once, and then forced himself to get his emotions under control. His hands were shaky, and the gun tucked safely in his belt, felt bulky, and made his skin, slick with sweat, itch. This wasn’t like him, and Jason took a few steadying breaths, ignoring the anxious looks that a few people, who were also headed toward the twenty-four hour clinic, cast in his direction. He resisted the urge to snarl at them, and strode purposefully toward the clinic doors.

 

Stealing himself for what would greet him when he got inside, Jason tugged open the clinic doors, and entered. Instead of the chaos and degradation that he was expecting to see, he was met with what looked like a busy, yet well-organized, and tidy operation.

 

Jason honed in on the receptionist, walking toward the harried looking young woman with determined steps. She looked up at him as he came toward the window. Her blue eyes grew wide and she stared at him with unmasked fright. Frowning, Jason realized that her gaze had been drawn toward his gun, and he held his hands out, trying to show that he wasn’t a threat.

 

“I’m not here to cause any trouble,” Jason said, and he tried to smile, but knew that it fell short of convincing her that he truly meant her no harm.

 

He took a deep breath, and looked at her nametag, intending to try to establish some kind of easy rapport with her, to ensure her that he was not here to shoot up the clinic. The last thing that he, or anyone else in the clinic, needed was for the spooked receptionist to call the police.

 

The nametag read, Margot D., and Jason realized that this was the woman who’d called him. He noticed that there was what appeared to be a blood stain on her blouse, and Jason wondered if that was Spinelli’s, or some other patient’s blood.

 

“Look, mister, we don’t want any trouble here,” Margot said in a quiet, clipped voice that, even though it shook with fear, was strong. “We have a strict policy that everyone here adheres to. No weapons, of any kind, are allowed inside of the clinic.”

 

“I’m the man you spoke to,” Jason said, his voice equally quiet. And, when she just blinked at him, and raised an eyebrow, looking pointedly at his gun, he added, “On the phone. You told me my friend had been stabbed, and gave me directions to this clinic. Where’s Spinelli?”

 

The woman’s forced smile gave way to something that resembled pity, and Jason’s heart skipped a beat. His knees buckled and he had to hold the edge of the counter to keep from falling. Her eyes welled with tears, and Jason found it difficult to breathe. He shook his head, trying to rid it of a high-pitched ringing sound that seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once, attacking him from the inside, and from outside. His skin felt hot and prickly, and bile rose in his throat.

 

It felt like his heart was being squeezed, and the room began to spin. The floor felt unsteady beneath his feet, and Jason’s fingers slipped from the counter. He would have crashed to the tiled floor had he not been caught by one of the doctors who’d apparently been standing nearby, watching just in case things had taken a turn for the worse.

 

Jason felt himself being eased into a chair, the gun being slipped from his waistband. He reached for it, only to find that his fingers were clasping around thin air. An older man gave him a piercing look, and shook his head.

 

“You’ll get this back when you’re ready to leave the clinic,” the elderly doctor said. His voice was grandfatherly, yet firm. “And not a minute sooner.”

 

The doctor walked off with his gun, and Jason sat there, numb. He knew that he should do something, but he couldn’t seem to figure out what it was that he was supposed to be doing. He was finding it difficult to string two thoughts together, let alone get his body to cooperate with his sluggish mind. It felt as though he was trapped in quicksand and slowly drowning on the sand as it filled his lungs, making them heavy.

 

When the doctor returned, he sat in a chair directly across from Jason. Jason could feel the doctor’s eyes on him, could sense, more than see, the man’s deep, thoughtful frown. He didn’t react when the doctor laid a warm, weathered hand on his arm. Jason was incapable of any normal sort of reaction as he took in the awful truth that Spinelli was dead. Lost to him forever.

 

“Dr. Addler, it’s all my fault,” the receptionist appeared at the doctor’s side, wringing her hands, and looking like the fate of the world rested on her shoulders.

 

The doctor gave her an appraising look, which made her blush and look away, as though she was a little girl being reprimanded for having too many cookies before supper. It was all so surreal that Jason almost believed that he’d stepped into an alternate universe of some sort, like he’d stepped right into an episode of, “The Twilight Zone,” a black-and-white television show that Spinelli had watched from time to time in which strange things happened to ordinary people.

 

“I highly doubt that this man’s collapse is your fault, Ms. Delavigne,” Dr. Addler said in a slightly indulgent tone of voice. “Nor is it your fault that he’s chosen to disregard our weapons policy, even though it is printed on our door. There’s a sign, young man, and it would behoove you, in the future, to pay attention to signs. And, before you ask, your gun has been secured in a locked box, and tucked away safely in my own personal desk,” Dr. Addler said.

 

Jason blinked at the doctor, and simply nodded in agreement. He couldn’t find enough breath to speak, and was having a difficult time wrapping his head around what was happening. All he cared about was Spinelli, and from the looks of things, he’d been too late to save his son. His firstborn son. The boy he’d never even really gotten to know.

 

Though the young man had lived with him for several years, Jason hadn’t really taken the opportunity to get to know Spinelli, not really. He didn’t know Spinelli’s hopes or desires. Didn’t know what Spinelli’s dreams were. And, what was worse was that Jason hadn’t cared to know until now, when it was too damn late.

 

Jason had taken Spinelli for granted. Like gum on the bottom of his shoe, Jason had just expected Spinelli to be there, and to keep coming back. He’d used him as a resource, as nothing more than a tool to help build Sonny Corinthos’ ill-gotten empire.

 

Jason’s heart ached when he recalled all of the times that he’d stood mutely by when Sonny had berated Spinelli, calling the young hacker all sorts of terrible names, making Spinelli wince and hunch in on himself, like a broken, battered child.

 

Jason hadn’t lifted a finger, or said a word to defend Spinelli. He’d watched, and listened, and let Sonny get away with abusing Spinelli, solely because he’d thought that Spinelli should learn to defend himself, or, at least that’s what he told himself so that he could sleep at night. The hurt, wounded look in Spinelli’s eyes, after Sonny had torn into him, would have given Jason nightmares, otherwise.

 

In the days following his knowledge that he was Spinelli’s father, memories of allowing Sonny to belittle and demean Spinelli _had_ given Jason nightmares. And, he’d woken, covered in a fine sheen of sweat, heart pounding in his ears, body quaking with an image of Spinelli, much smaller and younger than he was when Jason first met him – green eyes, dull and vacant, body bruised as though Sonny hadn’t just called him names, but taken a fist to him.

 

“But, doctor,” Margot protested, laying a hand on the doctor’s arm, to draw his attention from Jason. “I…”

 

“This man’s in shock,” Dr. Addler ignored Margot entirely. He flashed a penlight in Jason’s eyes, causing Jason to hiss and turn away from the light. “His eyes are slightly dilated, and his skin is cool and clammy. Go, fetch us a blanket Ms. Delavigne, and maybe some hot tea.”

 

He didn’t even turn around to make sure that the receptionist had followed his orders; instead, he concentrated on Jason, peering closely at him. It made Jason feel more than a little uncomfortable, and his stomach, when he thought about Spinelli, clenched painfully. Jason shuddered, and he tried to pull his arm away from the doctor, but, for an old man, he had a surprisingly strong grip.

 

“Tell me what happened, son,” Dr. Addler said.

 

Jason took a shaky breath, and, though he’d had no intention of telling the doctor anything, words were spilling out of his mouth like he had no control over them. Jason didn’t know if it was the shock of finding out that he’d been too late. That, Spinelli had died before he’d gotten around to telling him that he was his father.

 

But, Jason sat there, like an obedient child confessing his sins, and told Dr. Addler the whole sordid tale, not even looking up to acknowledge when Margot had draped a blanket over his shoulders and placed a cup of hot tea in his hand. He sipped at the tea as he spoke. He didn’t look at Dr. Addler, and didn’t pay any attention to Margot as she perched herself on the arm of a chair next to him.

 

When he was finished, head held in his hands, and tears stinging at the back of his eyelids, Jason was no longer the strong, tightly-controlled man that he’d always prided himself as. A gnarled hand landed on his knee, and a sob was torn from Jason’s chest before he could stop it. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, trying, in vain, to keep the uncharacteristic tears from falling. He felt foolish, and vulnerable, and completely out of his element.

 

“But, sir,” Margot’s voice was much too bright, and cheerful, given the circumstances.

 

Jason raised his head to glare at her. She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, and grinned at him.

 

“Sir, he’s not dead. Your son,” Margot said, grinning widely, “he’s still alive. Dr. Morales and Dr. Pemberton are taking care of him, behind those doors.”

 

Margot turned to point toward a set of double doors off to the right of the, now crowded, lobby. There was another receptionist, standing behind the counter where Jason had stood, god knew how long ago, to ask about Spinelli.

 

The woman who was now manning the reception desk was older than Margot by at least a decade, if not two, and managed to somehow look both compassionate and stern at the same time. She handled the patients with an easy, calm efficiency that was no doubt welcome in such a place.

 

It looked, to Jason, like it could get a bit rowdy in the clinic from time-to-time, and Jason understood why weapons were not allowed inside of the clinic. The patients were a mixture of all sorts – rough and tumble, drug addicts, children, and worn looking men and women who appeared to be dead on their feet.

 

Jason stared at Margot, not quite comprehending her words, or understanding the importance of the doors she was pointing toward. His eyes followed the tip of her finger, and Jason noted, dully, that the doors leading away from the lobby were a light green in color. It wasn’t the same shade of green that Spinelli’s eyes were, but the color reminded him of the hacker he’d met eight years ago.

 

Looking into Spinelli’s eyes had been like looking into a mirror. Not only had they reflected Spinelli’s own inner emotions, and light, but they’d also revealed truths to those who’d dared to look into them. Jason had, at times, avoided looking into Spinelli’s eyes, fearful of the judgment he’d find hidden in them or the disappointment that he knew lurked beneath their glassy surface. Spinelli had been good and kind and everything that Jason was not.

 

Maybe Spinelli was better off not knowing the truth about where he’d come from. Maybe fate had intervened, letting Jason fail Spinelli one last time, so that he could see how badly he’d failed the boy these past eight years when he’d not known of their connection at all. If Jason had been incapable of standing up for Spinelli, and defending his son against the abusers and evils of the world when Spinelli had been counted only as his friend, how could Jason stand by Spinelli’s side, as the young man’s father?

 

“Sir.” Margot laid a hand on Jason’s arm; the smile was gone from her face. “He’s alive,” she repeated.

 

“Your son, Spinelli,” she stumbled over the name, as though she didn’t quite believe it was a proper name, “he isn’t dead. I’m sorry that I led you to believe that he was. I just…I felt so bad for him. He was only trying to help, I think, and I startled them, Billy and Bob, and…it really was just an accident. A horrible, unfortunate accident. But, he’s alive, and he’s going to be okay. The doctors said he didn’t need surgery.” The words tumbled out of her mouth almost as quickly as Spinelli’s did when he was excited about something, or had made a breakthrough on a case, and Jason struggled to keep up with the slew of words.

 

“Ms. Delavigne,” Dr. Addler said in a sharp, scolding tone of voice, “stop your nattering and bring us the boy. He ought to have been stitched up by now.” His eyes were fixed on Jason as he spoke, as though the doctor was afraid that Jason might fall apart, or flee the clinic – and maybe he would – if he didn’t pin him to the spot with his iron like glare.

 

The doctor squeezed Jason’s knee, and gave him a tight, unhappy smile. “You’re thinking of not telling that boy that you’re his father.” Dr. Addler held a finger up to silence Jason when he opened his mouth to protest.

 

Jason’s stomach churned guiltily, and he looked away. He took a deep breath, fortifying himself and locking his jaw, before returning the doctor’s hard gaze with one of his own. Jason had control over himself once again, and he would be damned if he was going to lose it on account of an old, doddering doctor.

 

“Don’t try to deny it. I can read it in your eyes,” Dr. Addler said. “God knows I shouldn’t meddle, but,” he narrowed his eyes at Jason, and jabbed a finger in Jason’s direction, punctuating each word that he spoke, “you owe it to him, and to yourself, to tell that young man the truth.”

 

The doctor sat back in his chair, and gave Jason a challenging look. He didn’t so much as flinch when Jason leaned forward and narrowed his eyes dangerously.

 

“I’m no good for him,” Jason said after a pause during which neither of them had backed down. Jason ran a hand through his hair and stared at the back of his hands.

 

Dr. Addler smacked Jason’s hand to get his attention, chuckling when Jason fisted his hands and almost hauled off to hit him. The doctor rolled his eyes, and shook his head.

 

“Look, son, there ain’t none of us that are cut out to be fathers,” he said. “Not a damn one of us. But, you got one thing going for you.” Dr. Addler held up a single finger.

 

In spite of himself, Jason asked, “What’s that?” He winced at how defensive and sullen he sounded. Like a little kid being scolded for breaking a neighbor’s window.

 

“You got heart,” Dr. Addler said, and he gave Jason a genuine smile. “You got heart, and you care about that boy, whether or not you realize it yourself.”

 

Dr. Addler squeezed Jason’s knee, and then he stood. “I’ll be going to get your gun,” he said quietly, and then he disappeared through the green double doors, letting them swing behind him.

 

“Stone Cold?” Spinelli’s voice, quiet and slurred from medication, reached his ears before the sight of his son fully registered with his eyes.

 

Spinelli swayed on his feet, and Jason reached his son’s side in record time, wrapping an arm around Spinelli’s waist to help keep him upright. Jason noted the bloodied and torn clothing, as well as the white paper bag that Spinelli clutched tightly in his right hand. Jason reached for the bag of pills, prying it from Spinelli’s fingers with only a minimum of protest.

 

“What’re you doin’ here?” Spinelli asked, leaning against Jason.

 

“Someone needed to pick you up from the hospital,” Jason replied easily.

 

“Oh.” Spinelli turned to look at him, and Jason felt his insides squirm.

 

“Here’s your gun.” Dr. Addler pressed the weapon into Jason’s free hand as he spoke, startling Jason into glaring at him. The doctor just raised an eyebrow, and nodded meaningfully in Spinelli’s direction.

 

“Thanks, doc,” Jason said through gritted teeth.

 

Dr. Addler winked at Jason, before turning away and presumably heading over to care for another patient. “Don’t mention it, _son_.”

 

Shaking his head, at the retreating doctor’s back, Jason turned his attention toward the doctors who had taken care of Spinelli. He listened carefully to the instructions that the doctors gave him for dressing Spinelli’s wound and for administering his medications – one bottle was filled with painkillers, and the other with antibiotics.

 

Spinelli would have to return to the clinic, or go to his primary physician, in ten days’ time to have his sutures removed. If there were any complications, or if the wound was pussy, or remained red for more than forty-eight hours, then Jason would have to bring Spinelli back to the clinic, or, to his primary physician to get a possible infection under control.

 

By the time Jason ushered Spinelli out of the hospital, and into the SUV, Spinelli was barely conscious, and Jason’s head was spinning with all of the instructions, and with Dr. Addler’s insistence that he had to tell Spinelli the truth. For now, though, it would be enough for Jason to bring Spinelli home, and let him rest. Neither of them was ready to have that kind of talk just yet.


	4. Cat's Got Your Tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spinelli isn't sure what he wants to do with the news that Jason's given him. Is it a gift? Or, is it the confession of a man who's robbed him of what was rightfully his?

4\. Cat’s got Your Tongue – Wherein Spinelli Doesn’t Quite Know What to Say

Spinelli stared, hard, at his mentor. He was certain that, at any moment, Stone Cold’s face was going to break out in a wide grin, and someone was going to pop out from behind the couch, camera in hand, and shout, “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera.” Or, maybe, these being more modern times, “You’ve been punk’d!”

 

When neither of those things happened, and Stone Cold’s mouth remained in a firm, anxious line that made his lips look white and dry, Spinelli realized that his mentor wasn’t joking. He licked his lips, and looked away from Stone Cold, because Spinelli couldn’t bear to see so much anguish, and bald fear reflected in Stone Cold’s posture and eyes. It was unthinkable, and yet, Stone Cold hadn’t taken his words back.

 

“How long...” Spinelli’s voice cracked before he could finish his question, and he cleared his throat. His side itched where the stitches tugged the broken skin together, adhering flesh and flesh together. He resisted the urge to pick at the site of the wound. It was healing nicely, and Spinelli would be getting the stitches removed in two more days. He had finished his antibiotics a week ago, and hadn’t taken a pill for pain in several days now.

 

He’d been in touch with Mr. Abernathy, a few days after the incident. In spite of the portly man’s unhappiness that Spinelli had found out that his soon to be daughter-in-law really was as much of a saint as his son had claimed she was, the man had paid him for his services, and tacked on a thousand dollar bonus. Spinelli wasn’t entirely certain, but he thought that maybe Stone Cold might have had something to do with that. Mr. Abernathy had mentioned meeting an associate of Spinelli’s who’d been most ‘unpleasant’ and ‘pushy’, bordering on, ‘rude.’

 

Spinelli looked at Stone Cold through the fringe of his bangs. Stone Cold, body taut, was still watching him warily, waiting for Spinelli to say something in response to the big reveal. The problem was, Spinelli didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure what to do with this new incarnation of Stone Cold. He’d lived, on-and-off, with the man, for the past eight years, and Stone Cold had never once, taken care of him like he’d done during the past week.

 

Stone Cold had been acting very strangely over the course of the week after Spinelli had been stabbed. He’d been waiting on Spinelli hand and foot, taking care of all of his needs, sometimes before Spinelli could even voice them.

 

Once, when he was trapped in the throes of a nightmare, struggling with a hideous dream version his assailant, tossing and turning in his bed, unable to wake, and escape the dark terror, Stone Cold had come into his room and woken him. He’d then spent the rest of the night in Spinelli’s room, watching over him, making sure that he wouldn’t be trapped in another nightmare.

 

It had been strange, Stone Cold’s almost fatherly like attentions, and yet welcome, because Spinelli had been in a lot of pain, at first, and then, well, it had been nice pretending that Stone Cold cared for him as a mentor would his acolyte. Spinelli had questioned the other man a couple of times, and had always gotten the same answer – that Stone Cold was only doing what was to be expected, and that, should their roles be reversed, he was certain Spinelli would do the same for him.

 

It had been a non-answer, really, and Spinelli should have probed harder, but, he hadn’t. He’d taken Stone Cold at his word, trusting that his mentor wouldn’t lie to him, but now Spinelli realized that Stone Cold was, not only capable of lying to him, but also of covering up decades old secrets.

 

Stone Cold’s eyes, an intense, piercing blue were staring, unwaveringly at Spinelli, making him squirm in his seat, sprawled out over the couch. “Spinelli, say something,” Stone Cold’s voice was quiet, pleading, “please.”

 

It was that please, so uncharacteristic of his mentor, that caused Spinelli to take a good, hard look at Stone Cold, and then to give voice to the question that had been burning in his heart and mind for the past half an hour. “How long have you known?”

 

Stone Cold swallowed and looked at his hands. “About a month now. I was going to tell you, the night that…” he gestured toward Spinelli’s injured side. “But…”

 

“But, what? You thought that I was too fragile, or, or, or, that you didn’t really want a son who was so, so, damn clumsy?” Spinelli knew that he was stuttering, something which only happened when he was deeply hurt, or excited about something, but he couldn’t help it.

 

His head was spinning, and he had to close his eyes to maintain focus, because he couldn’t look at the hurt reflected in Stone Cold’s eyes without caving. He was hurt and angry and worried that Stone Cold had waited so long to tell him that he was his father, because he’d been looking for a way to get out of it, and had only told Spinelli just now because he hadn’t found a way to get out of it after all.

 

When he opened his eyes again, Stone Cold was watching him with a sad, but determined look on his face. Spinelli supposed that, maybe he’d gotten his stubbornness from the man sitting across from him, rather than his Granny, who, it turned out, wasn’t even related to him by blood. 

 

“God, no, Spinelli,” Stone Cold said, reaching out for him. Spinelli pulled away, not wanting to be touched by the other man just now. Stone Cold shook his head, and looked down at his hands, before locking eyes with Spinelli’s.

 

Stone Cold smiled humorlessly and took a deep breath before continuing. “No, Spinelli. I didn’t tell you, at first, because I didn’t know what to say. And then, when I’d finally figured it out, you were stabbed, and zoned out on pain pills. And,” Stone Cold paused, and swallowed thickly, “and then I thought that maybe you’d be better off not knowing, because I haven’t been there for you these past eight years. Not the way I should have been. Not the way a father should be.”

 

Spinelli blinked at Stone Cold, and then frowned. He shook his head at his mentor’s, no…his father’s…skewed logic, and reached out for his father’s hand, clasping it tightly in his own, and squeezing. Stone Cold’s breath hitched, and he drew Spinelli into a hug.

 

It was awkward, and Spinelli wasn’t sure what it was that he was supposed to be feeling, but he doubted that he was supposed to feel uncomfortable and hurt and as though he’d lost something very important, and that he had no hope of ever getting it back. He hurt, and Stone Cold was hugging him, finally, after all of these years of rejecting similar gestures when Spinelli had initiated them. It was overwhelming, and Spinelli was feeling: happy-angry-sad-hurt-lonely-joyful-betrayed-loved.

 

Stone Cold did not give out spontaneous hugs. At least not to Spinelli. When Spinelli pulled back, Stone Cold held him tighter, as though waiting for something to happen before releasing the hug, or as though fearful of breaking the physical connection between them lest it also break the tenuous father-son connection before Stone Cold and Spinelli had even had a chance to start building it up properly.

 

“Spinelli, I’m sorry.” Stone Cold’s breath was warm against his neck, making him shiver. “I’m so, so sorry.”

 

The combination of the repetition of the word, ‘sorry,’ being murmured into his ear, and the rocking, served to be Spinelli’s undoing. He wrapped his arms around Stone Cold, hugging the man as tightly as Stone Cold was hugging him.

 

Time ceased to exist for a while, and it was just Spinelli and Stone Cold – father and son – sitting in the living room, Stone Cold on the edge of the coffee table, and Spinelli on the couch. And, when they both pulled away, simultaneously, they were breathing heavily, wiping tears from their faces with the back of their hands.

 

“Where do we go from here?” Spinelli asked when he could find his voice.

 

Stone Cold took a deep breath, letting it out, and he dropped his gaze to his hands, before lifting it to look directly at Spinelli. His eyes were filled with a myriad of emotions that Spinelli didn’t often see in them. With Stone Cold, it was either love – for Carly, Michael, Sam, or, more recently, for Danny – or anger. There was very little in between, and no variance that Spinelli could recall.

 

So, to see hope, fear, determination, and love, in Stone Cold’s eyes, and all of it directed at him, was more moving than anything that Stone Cold could ever say. Spinelli knew that words weren’t Stone Cold’s strength. The man preferred to show, rather than tell. And, right now, his eyes, as well as his hesitancy to speak before gathering his words carefully about him, were telling Spinelli everything that he needed to know.

 

Stone Cold cleared his throat, and tears welled in his eyes. “I’d like a chance to be your father.” His voice was filled with quiet apprehension.

 

“That is, if you’ll have me. I know I can’t give you back all of the years that we’ve missed, and that I can’t make up for the eight years when I…when I…” Stone Cold’s voice broke, and tears spilled from his eyes, but he brushed them away angrily.

 

“When I treated you as though you meant nothing more to me than a hacker I could use to get information when I needed it. I know that, nothing I can say or do, now, or ever, will make up for what I’ve done in the past, and, how I’ve hurt you. And, I can’t promise that I won’t screw things up, but, Spinelli, I’d like it if you gave me a chance to at least try to be your father,” Stone Cold finished with a wry smile and a little shake of his head.

 

When Spinelli didn’t answer right away, because he couldn’t find the right words to say, Stone Cold sighed, and ran a hand through his hair.

 

“I understand,” he said, and then he stood and jammed his hands into his pockets. “I...you’ve been written into my will. A fifty-fifty split with your brother, Danny.”

 

“Stone Cold,” Spinelli’s voice was little more than a whisper, and he nearly cursed himself when the man he’d always thought of as a father, even before it was revealed that Jason Morgan really was his father, started to leave the room.

 

“Stone Cold,” he said a little louder, but, either his words weren’t heard, or his silence had hurt Stone Cold more than Spinelli had realized, because the man didn’t turn around.

 

Spinelli tried to push up off the couch so that he could go after Stone Cold, but his side felt like it was on fire, and he bit back the cry of pain that his movement had elicited. He breathed through the pain, and realized that Stone Cold had been right earlier, when he’d told him that, because he was moving around more than he had been in the past week, taking a pain pill might not be such a bad idea.

 

“Stone Cold,” Spinelli tried calling out again, his heart hammering almost painfully in his chest when Stone Cold set foot on the first of the steps leading upstairs.

 

“Dad,” he blurted out, the word feeling foreign on his tongue, and yet right, in his heart. “Dad,” he repeated the word. “Please, don’t go.”

 

His father stopped ascending the stairs mid-footfall, and turned around so quickly that Spinelli feared he’d lose his balance and fall. His rapidly blinking eyes, as well as the way his hands gripped the railing, showed Spinelli how much the term of endearment meant to the man who’d always, knowingly or not, been like a father to him.

 

No, Stone Cold hadn’t always been loving and kind toward Spinelli – there were times, in the past, when Spinelli had been convinced that the man hated him. Stone Cold had never been demonstrative – physically, or otherwise – of his emotions with Spinelli, and Spinelli didn’t know if this morning’s hug, and the tears which had followed, would be par for the course now that it had been revealed that Spinelli was his son.

 

No, Stone Cold was not, by any stretch of the imagination, anyone’s idea of topnotch father material. But, that was because most people didn’t look past the surface – the surly, gruff outer exterior that was easy for anyone to see, the mobster, the stone-cold killer– to the man that lie beneath it all. But, Spinelli could see what lie underneath the cold façade that Stone Cold had erected around his heart, and he knew that Stone Cold had great potential to be a good father. It was something that Spinelli had always seen in the man – this, potential lurking beneath the surface of what Stone Cold showed the rest of the world.

 

The man was loyal, protected those he loved with a fierceness of a lioness protecting her cubs, and had a compassionate heart. Yes, it was true that Stone Cold’s other qualities often superseded those particular ones – practicality, efficiency, and a tendency to see things only in black and white – but even those bore the potential, if properly forged, of making a good father.

 

Spinelli shifted, trying to get a little more comfortable, and he moaned when he jarred his injured side. Stone Cold was by his side, situating himself next to Spinelli, before Spinelli could even blink. Stone Cold, his father, pressed the back of his hand to Spinelli’s forehead, his brow wrinkled in concern.

 

“I don’t think you have a fever,” he said, frowning. “Are you in pain?”

 

Spinelli rolled his eyes. “Relax, you were right, the Jackal should have taken a pain pill today. All of this moving around is taking a little more of a toll than I thought it would.”

 

“I’ll go get your pain pills; they’re in the medicine cabinet, right?” He was out of his seat, and up the stairs before Spinelli could protest.

 

Knowing that any protest would have fallen on deaf ears anyway, Spinelli rested his head on the back of the couch and made himself as comfortable as he could, under the circumstances. As it was, he couldn’t wait until the stitches came out, because they were itching like mad, and, though he knew that he’d still experience some pain once they came out, he knew that he’d at least have more freedom of movement, and could go back to work full-time.

 

Stone Cold came back into the living room with, not only a pill for the pain, but a bottle of orange soda, sweet nectar of the gods, and a bag of BBQ chips in hand. He plonked down next to Spinelli, and handed Spinelli a pill and the soda, watching him like a hawk until he’d swallowed it. He seemed to breathe a little easier once Spinelli had swallowed the pill.

 

Spinelli snagged the bag of chips from his Stone Cold’s…his father’s…lap, and grabbed a handful of them, stuffing them into his mouth all at once, wiping the trace of crumbs and grease off on his jeans. He grinned, his cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk’s filled with nuts, at his father who looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

 

“Don’t get used to this.” Stone Cold pulled a single chip from the bag and popped it into his mouth, and promptly grimaced. Even so, he finished the chip, and then took a healthy swig of a beer that Spinelli hadn’t realized the man had brought back with him.

 

“Eating on the couch,” he elaborated after a pause, no doubt worried that Spinelli had misinterpreted his words.

 

It was going to take quite some time for Spinelli to think of Stone Cold in terms of father, or Dad, on a regular basis, and he felt a little twinge of guilt for that. But, he wasn’t in any rush, and it appeared that his father wasn’t in any rush either, as the man wrapped an arm around Spinelli’s shoulder and drew him close until Spinelli’s head rested on his chest.

 

Spinelli found comfort in listening to the strong, steady heartbeat of the man who’d taken him in, and put a roof over his head, and given him a job, when no one else would – back when he’d been nothing but a nuisance to Jason Morgan – and Spinelli had loved him then, before knowing the man was his father. He wouldn’t love him any less now, for knowing.  Stone Cold combed through Spinelli’s hair with his fingers, and Spinelli relaxed into the touch, soon falling into a peaceful sleep.

 

Spinelli never felt the kiss that his father pressed to his forehead; it was placed there lightly, so as not to wake him. But he might’ve heard the murmured words that his father spoke as they twined themselves seamlessly into his dreams: “I love you, son, and I’m going to make sure that you know it every day from here on out. I can’t make up for the past, and there’s no sense in trying, because the past cannot be fixed, or changed. But, what I can do, son, is make sure that you feel loved and wanted and safe, now. I love you, Spinelli.”


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason realizes what he's had all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you enjoyed this, Suerum.

5\. Epilogue – Wherein Jason Realizes What He’s had All Along

Jason watched the various expressions that crossed the planes of Spinelli’s face, even as he slept. He enjoyed the heavy warmth of having Spinelli sitting next to him, half-sprawled across him on the couch; the gentle susurration of sound that escaped Spinelli’s parted lips that wasn’t quite a snore.

 

In a word, he loved, Spinelli, and couldn’t understand why it had taken him so long to quantify what it was that he’d been feeling for the awkward, geeky boy all along. That it had taken Lacy coming forward with the truth for Jason to even begin to think along these lines made him feel shame. It shouldn’t have come to that. Jason should have been able to admit that he loved Spinelli like a son well before that day.

 

As he ran his fingers through Spinelli’s hair, Jason hummed a song that he remembered from some long ago time that he wasn’t certain he should be able to recall at all. A woman with long, dark hair had sung it to him when he was little, as she’d rocked him to sleep.

 

Jason couldn’t remember the words, but he remembered how safe and loved he’d felt, cradled in her arms, with the sound of her voice and heartbeat washing over him, the sensation of her fingers combing through his hair. He wanted Spinelli to feel that too – safe, loved, and secure.

 

He brushed his lips across Spinelli’s forehead. “From now, until forever,” Jason murmured the words he’d heard so long ago, “I will love you, son.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've enjoyed reading this, please let me know.   
> Mahalo


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